


A Meditation With Myself About Him

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: First Person, Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:46:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26352889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Frank reflects over the years about his relationship with Gerard in a journal style short.———I always thought it was sweet how Frank seems to be such a people watcher, with photography and the way he smiles and looks while other people are talking in interviews, I wanted to capture that observational aspect somehow, and obviously make it a lil gay (just a bit :)
Relationships: Frank Iero & Gerard Way, Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Kudos: 10





	A Meditation With Myself About Him

A Meditation With Myself About Him

Journal March, 2013

There were seven of us in the basement studio drinking and jesting. I was sat on the couch, squished between the arm and Ray’s shaky leg. Gerard was sat opposite me, spinning back and forth in an office chair. Someone had made a joke and some response was on the tip of my tongue but the joint was passed to me and I couldn’t be damned. 

Gerard was in the middle of his third full spin when something on his face lit up and he exclaimed, “my lungs are on fucking fire!” We would later learn this was his tooth pain but for the moment it was a quirky high-induced moment of paranoia and he jetted off up the stairs to the freezing outside.

Of course we all followed him, and found that he’d buried his face in the snow like an ostrich to numb the pain. This was the first time I looked at him and thought, ‘I love you’ and I shook my head from the thought, downed my beer and dropped the bottle. I joined him in the snow and buried my head next to his. Then, there was Mikey next to both of us making a skinny snow angel.

Gerard rose from the snow with a gasp, so I turned around onto my back feeling the white beneath me crunch and the cold seep into my sweater. Our audience had dispersed back downstairs seeking refuge from the weather.

Mikey laughed, standing up to brush the snow from his hair. Gerard turned to look down at me with this big grimace, like he was trying to smile but it hurt, so I grabbed his wrist and pulled him face first back into the snow, and ran back down the stairs to grab another beer.

We were backstage and everyone had at least a buzz so naturally, for the time, Gerard was hammered. It was, by this point, typical etiquette to begin a show with a huddle group hug like the world’s least impressive football team. 

It was this, and Gerard had stepped back with this hesitant look on his face, the clearest and most decisive I had seen him all week, and he said, “I have something to share,” he paused. “So, I just wanna say thanks. For being here, for being my friends, because I just feel like if this wasn’t working I wouldn’t be here right now. Not the band, not art, not anything, I don’t think I’d be here right now...so yeah, thanks.” he mumbled. 

It was a normal gesture, something he’d say all the time, but I felt it, I knew it. I could see Mikey and Ray who had been there when Gerard was at his worst during the very beginning of it all, and I could feel it. I stepped forward fast as I could, and with as much might as I could muster I hugged Gerard. I said, “You’re why we’re here, too.”

And then it was all of us, with Otter, one big sweaty standing dog-pile, not just the huddle but a genuine grasp for straws and it was good.

So, it is often cited that Gerard’s sobering up the night before we shot for I’m Not Okay was an arduous process catalyzed by a phone call to Schecter and a very miserable plane ride to California, possibly from Japan. But damned if I remember because it was a moment and an evening I had never wanted to recall after it happened. I’m not sure I still feel that way.

I will tell you this: we were 3 hours before the start of the show, running late as we had yet to get to our hotel let alone get to the venue and do sound check because somehow in the bustle between the airport and the taxis Gerard was missing. I don’t remember how I learned this, but I do remember an incredibly panicked Worm and tour manager, who ushered us into a van to the venue with a promise to call once we got there.

It was Mikey who found him passed out next to the drum riser, missing a shoe and vomit clearly coating his front. Bob, at the time very new, very no-bullshit Bob came by with a solo cup full of water and dumped it directly onto Gerard’s head. Mikey and I bit back snickers as Gerard groaned and moped up from his place on the ground. 

Mikey circled around his brother, giving way to a light kick in the side and said, “I didn’t know you married the floor, congratulations.”

“What?”, Gerard squinted, and I smiled at him, and I said, “We just got the news of your elopement.” 

Ray’s distant voice cut through from backstage as he called, “Where the fuck can I find a phone!?”, progressively getting louder until he was right beside Bob, “Oh hi, Gerard.”

“Maybe we should ask security?”, Mikey suggested, and the three of them wandered off toward back stage again, every urge I had to follow was caught dead when I looked back at Gerard, who had slumped back down to the floor like no one had bothered him at all.

I sighed loudly to make a point at how over this we all were, that I was, to no reaction. I shuffled over to Gerard, and like Mikey had, nudged him with my shoe and he swatted back at me languidly. I bent down into a squat and poked his side. These antics were old, it was never a cry for help or attention, it was genuine douchebaggery as far as we were concerned and I still think we were wrong back then.

In the smallest voice he said, “hey Frankie, how are you?”

I was sitting crosslegged and bent over, kissed the top of his head and patted his hair a couple times. “I’m fine,” I said. “How are you?”

“I think... I think I could be better, actually.”

On set, sometime after a difficult phone call with Brian, between all of us and then just Gerard, and then all of us again... On set we had the time of our lives, it was like that cheesy being high on life kind of feeling. 

At the big empty school on the second day of shooting, I caught Gee’s attention and I asked him, “what’s up?”

He said, “this is good, actually, I like this kind of thing. It’s a whole— production, it feels really good.”

“Well, good.” I said.

The Paramour was a dour note bookmarking the beginning of the world’s greatest symphony. A big part of me wants to believe in ghosts but I’ve always been a skeptic, it’s one of the only things I like about me if I’m being honest. When we got there it started out fine, and then we had Mikey’s intervention and there was something really wrong after that, something hard to explain. 

Ray and I would philosophize late at night over a joint. He thought it was us manifesting what we wanted the place to be like, that maybe if we changed our perspective it wouldn’t seem so bleak, but he admitted even he’d been having trouble sleeping. I couldn’t really comment on it, I thought part of his idea was right, but that also maybe regardless of the environment this whole thing was inevitable, not fate, but just likely to happen regardless. 

One morning, I think it was around five, Gerard and I were the only ones awake and we snuck coffee up to the roof, watching the light pollution of the valley beneath us. 

He lit a cigarette and passed it to me as he exhaled. 

“Miss him?”, I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course I do, and I regret a lot of the past few weeks. I’m not glad he’s gone, but I’m glad he’s getting better.”

“Yeah,” I said, for lack of anything better to add.

“You know I’m lucky I had the crutches I did, and that I was shameless enough to rely on them so heavily.” He went on, and then we made eye contact and for a moment I felt like he’d seen right though me to something I didn’t even know how to express. He said, “thanks for always being there when I need you.” 

I nodded, coughing a little on the smoke in my throat, I said, “of course, Gee. Always.” 

“Mikey’s not as lucky, he has the same anchors and crutches but he has enough sense to feel ashamed.” Gerard’s face was grim, and I handed him back the cigarette.

I never thought we would headline Reading and Leeds with Brian May but we did and it was fucking awesome. I never thought we’d release the kind of record we did and it was kind of fucking awesome. To be honest, I was feeling sensitive because of a lot of these changes but mostly because fathering children is kind of a big deal. In general, I think being away from home can be a good thing because to me it’s just a reminder of why I love where I’m from and where I belong. But that year was a lot, it sucked, but it also had so many highs it was hard to keep up with most of the time. I had a lot questions, but I think I found an answer eventually to at least one of them that had been plaguing my mind for almost a decade.

I remember filming Na Na and finding Gerard staring into the sun, his hand covering his forehead to shield against the glare. His face was covered in dirt from driving in the desert. He was saying something about the dust gumming up his sinuses and he was trying to urge on a sneeze he knew was coming. 

I was at his side, watching him watch the clouds. Finally the impact of the sneeze hit him, and he covered his face with his elbow, tears streaming down his cheeks. 

I clapped my hands in a congratulatory fashion and said, “Good job.”

Gerard laughed a tiny laugh, and bowed. “Why, thank you.”

“What’s so interesting up there, anyway?” 

Gerard had leaned in next to me, bumping our shoulders together as he shrugged. “It makes me feel small, like it goes on forever. Keeps my ego in check, I dunno. Helps me empathize better with little people like you.”

“Oh yeah,” I nodded, “That’s how I feel about fire hydrants, you know, when dogs piss on them. Reminds me of you.”

“That’s so sweet,” Gerard said, completely sincere I was sure. “But it’s flaming hot red, not fire hydrant.”

“Okay,” I said, reaching up to tug a strand of his hair, “Looks like three parts grease on toppathat, too.”

“Now that, I cannot confirm or deny.” Gerard shrugged, pulling away. “Is break over, do you know? Did you need to come get me for something?”

“No, man. We wrapped while you were running donuts. It was the closeups for Ray and Mikey.” I shook my head. “They’re doing me tomorrow, cos we’ve kinda run out of the good sunlight or something.”

“Oh, so...” Gerard frowned, “I’m supposed to be directing.”

“Supposed to and actually doing it are two different things.” I poked him in the shoulder, “And I bet you have no regrets going for a drive instead of hanging around and feeling useless.”

Gerard shook his head, “Wise-ass.”

I couldn’t help but laugh until a sort of easy quiet had found its way between us. I said, “I wish I was at home, you know?” 

“I do,” he said, “but also, in a way, I’m already there, I think.” 

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, and then his arm was around my shoulder and it was some kind of weird shruggy hug, and I could feel his breath on my neck when he said, “I really think so.”

End


End file.
